M1 Mac mini teardown reveals smaller logic board, non-upgradeable RAM
What appears to be one of the first Mac mini teardowns reveals an M1 assembly that requires much less space than the previous Intel logic board.
Credit: Brandon Geekabit
About a week after going up for preorder, shipments of the new Mac mini equipped with Apple Silicon chips are starting to arrive to customers. Having received his, YouTuber Brandon Geekabit has shared an initial teardown of the device.
Disassembling the M1 Mac mini is pretty much the same as tearing down previous iterations, and the major difference is the fact that the M1 board takes up much less space. The size discrepancy is even more apparent since the M1 Mac mini shares the same chassis as its Intel predecessor.
Although the M1 chip has performed incredibly well in early benchmarks, there are some trade offs with the new devices. In the Mac mini's case, Apple has cut the number of Thunderbolt ports in half and Gigabit Ethernet is no longer an upgrade option.
Additionally, because the RAM and SSD are part of the M1 system-on-a-chip, the Mac mini's memory is no longer user upgradeable.
The base tier Mac mini does start at $100 cheaper than the previous model. The variant with an M1 chip, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of SSD storage starts at $679.
Credit: Brandon Geekabit
About a week after going up for preorder, shipments of the new Mac mini equipped with Apple Silicon chips are starting to arrive to customers. Having received his, YouTuber Brandon Geekabit has shared an initial teardown of the device.
Disassembling the M1 Mac mini is pretty much the same as tearing down previous iterations, and the major difference is the fact that the M1 board takes up much less space. The size discrepancy is even more apparent since the M1 Mac mini shares the same chassis as its Intel predecessor.
Although the M1 chip has performed incredibly well in early benchmarks, there are some trade offs with the new devices. In the Mac mini's case, Apple has cut the number of Thunderbolt ports in half and Gigabit Ethernet is no longer an upgrade option.
Additionally, because the RAM and SSD are part of the M1 system-on-a-chip, the Mac mini's memory is no longer user upgradeable.
The base tier Mac mini does start at $100 cheaper than the previous model. The variant with an M1 chip, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of SSD storage starts at $679.
Comments
Yes, the RAM is part of the M1 SOC. The video simply said "everything is soldered to the board, so we do not have any user-upgradeable RAM..." Which I suppose is technically soldered to the board, but not separately.
Yes and no. The actual logic is separate from the RAM, but they are both in the same SoC package. All the photos we have seen clearly showed this. I’m not sure why the article thinks “RAM is soldered to the motherboard”. The SSD sure is, but no, the RAM is part of the M1.
Not for this SoC. I personally believe the M1 was originally intended for the MacBook Air only, so Apple may have kept PCIe support to a minimum. As several Apple engineers have stated, they were shocked by the performance they got, and I think that's when they decided to also use it in the 13" Pro and mini. Maybe hoping his limitation might keep higher end users from purchasing these "low end" models.
I think the next SoC will increase expandability, then maybe we'll get 10Gb Ethernet, more Thunderbolt ports, support for more displays and possibly support for eGPUs.
Actually I am surprised they included wired ethernet... given Apple's tendency to eliminate anything they (even remotely) feel is passé.
Only if they remove the power supply. At least 25% of the inside is taken up by it.
10Gigabit - No, not from Apple. You can get a TB3 -> 10Gb ethernet adapter for < $150. Apple was charging $100 for 10Gb as an option on the Intel based Mac mini.